Oliver Cromwell - Faq 8 What do we know about Cromwellï¿½s health? What caused his death in September 1658? We know very little about Cromwellï¿½s health during his early life, before the 1640s. Such information as we do possess about this period in Cromwellï¿½s life generally comes from accounts written much later, once he had become famous and infamous. These accounts are often clearly biased against Cromwell and their colourful stories ï¿½ such as one that in early adulthood Cromwell had pestered his doctor in Huntingdon, repeatedly calling him out day and night to attend him as he lay ï¿½melancholy in his bedï¿½, fearing death and suffering from strange dreams or visions that he would one day become the most powerful man in the kingdom ï¿½ are best taken with a pinch of salt. However, there is contemporary evidence that in 1628, while he was in London serving as an MP, he consulted one of the greatest doctors of the day, Sir Theodore Mayerne.

In his surviving notebook, Mayerne recorded a variety of symptoms, including coughing, excess phlegm and digestive problems, together with ï¿½valde melancholicusï¿½. Other accounts of the young Cromwell suggest that he was prone to wearing a cloth around his neck, perhaps indicative of some sort of throat or chest problems. We know far more about Cromwellï¿½s health during the 1640s and 1650s, drawn from his own letters and from other strictly contemporary accounts of those who saw and met him. Cromwell appears to have been in good health throughout the 1640s, travelling great distances and campaigning vigorously in England and Wales. He seems to have been fit and healthy and enjoying robust health at this time. Although some sources suggest that he sustained a neck wound at Marston Moor and had to leave the field for a time to get it dressed, we hear nothing of this in Cromwellï¿½s own letters of summer 1644, and any wound must have been minor and healed completely ï¿½ later portraits do not show obvious scars there or anywhere else on the visible parts of Cromwellï¿½s body.

Indeed, the only health problem which we know troubled Cromwell during the 1640s was his occasional suffering from boils and abscesses, including one particularly nasty attack early in 1647, which incapacitated him for a time. He continued to be troubled by ï¿½imposthumesï¿½ from time to time during the 1650s. During the 1640s and the 1650s Cromwell was clearly troubled on occasion by the turn of events, deeply disappointed and disillusioned by military, political or religious developments, unsure what he should do or what God wanted him to do. At such times, Cromwell tended to draw into himself, to keep his own counsel and to ï¿½wait upon the Lordï¿½. Conversely, there were times when he came across as a man of boundless energy, acting quickly, firmly and decisively, confident that he was doing the right thing. Later accounts sometimes suggest that he also became elated, on an emotional high, in the wake of major military victories, laughing excessively, his eyes sparkling, acting almost as if he was drunk.

There is no doubt that Cromwell was an emotional man and that his emotions could swing quite dramatically and visibly between highs and lows, between an utter despondency from which God alone could save him to elation and euphoria when he believed that he was doing Godï¿½s will and that God had given him victory and success. In consequence, Cromwell has sometimes been described as a manic depressive, though that seems to be stretching the evidence and straining to make a case. For much of the 1640s and 1650s Cromwell was neither euphoric and manic nor gloomy and depressed, but instead was working steadily at his military, administrative and political tasks, tackling his workload in a perfectly balanced way. He does not come across as someone who could fairly be described in medical terms as mentally ill or emotionally disturbed. It is clear that Cromwellï¿½s physical health declined significantly during the final decade of his life.

The first sign of this, and perhaps the source of many later problems, occurred while he was campaigning in southern Ireland in October and November 1649, when he was laid low by some kind of fever ï¿½ on recovering, Cromwell wrote that he had been ï¿½very sickï¿½ and ï¿½crazy in my healthï¿½. Serious problems returned while he was on campaign in Scotland in 1650-51. In September 1650, after his great victory at Dunbar, he noted in a letter to his wife that ï¿½I assure thee, I grow an old man, and feel infirmities of age marvellously stealing upon meï¿½. For most of the period February to early June 1651 Cromwell lay very seriously ill in Edinburgh with a recurrent fever and dysentery. A worried parliament dispatched doctors from London to attend him. Eventually he recovered, though he subsequently wrote that ï¿½I thought I should have died of this fit of sicknessï¿½, an illness ï¿½so violent that indeed my nature was not able to bear the weight thereofï¿½.

Although most subsequent attacks do not seem to have been so severe and protracted as this Scottish episode, from time to time during the closing years of his life Cromwell was laid low with bouts of fever, fits of ï¿½ague' as they were called at the time. They do not appear to have caused any permanent impairment to Cromwellï¿½s mental strength and vigour ï¿½ in March 1658 he delivered a two hour speech to the Lord Mayor, aldermen and councillors of the City of London, as usual speaking largely extempore, and he responded vigorously to problems and events during spring and summer 1658. However, these recurrent bouts of fever-type illness, perhaps, some sources suggest, compounded in the 1650s by occasional trouble with kidney or bladder stones, certainly did take a physical toll. By 1655 the Venetian ambassador was noting that Cromwell was ï¿½pulled in appearance, with signs that his health is not stable and perfectï¿½ and he noticed that when the Protector removed his hat as a sign of courtesy ï¿½the hand holding his hat trembledï¿½.

Many biographers have noted how Cromwellï¿½s signature deteriorated dramatically during the last years of his life, from bold, firm, looping pen-stokes to the spidery and shaky effort indicative of a weak and tremulous hand. The sickness which eventually killed Cromwell probably began at the end of July 1658, when contemporary sources first noted that he was ill with what initially was believed to be merely gout but which, it was soon apparent, was something far more serious. From then until 3 September Cromwell suffered five bouts of illness, interspersed by brief interludes of apparent recovery. A variety of sources note that Cromwell was suffering from recurrent bouts of fever, sweating and ï¿½aguesï¿½, of hot and cold ï¿½fitsï¿½, which at least one observer explicitly likened to those which had laid him low in Edinburgh in 1651. He also suffered pain in his stomach, back and elsewhere about his body, was given to vomiting and diarrhoea and at one point was found to have an irregular pulse.

The fifth and, as it turned out, final bout began on 2 September and death occurred at around 3pm on 3 September. On the day after death had occurred, Cromwellï¿½s body was opened by the doctors, permitting an examination of some of his principal organs, as a preliminary to a partial and, it soon became apparent, botched and unsuccessful embalming. One of the principal doctors who attended Cromwell during his last illness and who opened and attempted to embalm his corpse, subsequently wrote and published an account of this episode. George Bateï¿½s account is in places very colourful and theatrical and its reliability can and has been questioned; Bate was an ambitious royalist and his account is shot through with anti-Cromwellian bias.

However, his brief account of what he reportedly found on opening Cromwellï¿½s body may throw further light on the cause of death: His Body being opened; in the Animal parts, the Vessels of the Brain seemed to be overcharged; in the Vitals the Lungs a little inflamed; but in the Natural, the source of the distemper appeared; the Spleen, though sound to the Eye, being within filled with matter like to the Lees of Oyl. So what killed Cromwell? Having poured over accounts of his final illness of summer 1658, having examined his earlier medical record, and having either given credence to or dismissed as hopelessly unreliable Bateï¿½s account of the very primitive autopsy, most biographers and historians have concluded that during the 1650s Cromwell suffered from a recurrent, malarial-type disease and that this was the principal or sole cause of his final illness and death in 1658. In the seventeenth century, a form of malaria was quite common in damp, lowland areas of northern Europe, including parts of Britain and Ireland; for example, it was present in the fenlands of East Anglia.

This was a milder form of malaria than that still found in many hotter, tropical or sub-tropical parts of the world, and it did not cause death on such a large scale, though it could and did carry off the old and the weak. It was noted at the time that many of the troops sent over to reconquer Ireland from 1649 onwards succumbed to the ï¿½country sicknessï¿½ or the ï¿½agueï¿½, a recurrent fever-based illness. Most biographers and historians have concluded that Cromwell was one of them, and that his illness of late 1649 while in Ireland marked the onset of the disease. Although he had just turned fifty and so was probably past his physical prime, he was then still strong and robust and so threw off this first visitation quite easily.

Subsequent visitations, together with other afflictions during the 1650s ï¿½ dysentery was reportedly present during his long illness in Edinburgh in 1651, boils and abscesses continued to cause trouble, and intermittent problems with kidney or bladder stones are indicated by some accounts ï¿½ and the general decline caused by advancing years noted by the Venetian ambassador and others rendered Cromwell less able to throw off attacks as quickly or as easily and made him more vulnerable. Having fought a clearly sharp and vigorous attack for over a month during summer 1658, his fifty-nine year old body could continue the struggle no longer and the fifth bout of fever in early September quickly killed him. Malarial fever is the most likely and the most widely accepted explanation for Cromwell's death. However, not all historians have been or are entirely satisfied by this explanation.

A number of authors, from the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal writing shortly after Cromwell's death to Dr C H Davidson in a paper first published in The Proceedings of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1988 (and reprinted in Cromwelliana in 1993), have suggested that Cromwell's death may have resulted from kidney or bladder stones, which caused a blockage of the urinary tract and associated internal damage or infection which resulted in septacaemia. Although Cromwell reportedly suffered intermittent abdominal pain during his last weeks, the surviving accounts of his symptoms during his final illness do not strongly indicate problems with kidney or bladder stones. A letter of 31 August, giving an account of Cromwellï¿½s symptoms at that time, noted that ï¿½his water [was] good all this dayï¿½, again contradicting suggestions that kidney or bladder stones were present or were major factors in the final stages of the fatal illness.

Even more dramatically, in a full-length study published in 2000, an American academic, Professor H F McMains, argued that Cromwell was deliberately poisoned during summer 1658, initially with antimony, then during much of August with mercury, and then, when those failed to kill the intended victim, finished off with a massive dose of arsenic administered on 2 September. Professor McMains highlights some of the symptoms noted by obervers in summer 1658 (especially gastro-intestinal problems and the severe abdominal pains from which Cromwell intermittently suffered towards the end), the interludes of recovery and reasonable health which Cromwell enjoyed between the five bouts of illness, the speed with which the fifth and final bout took hold, leading to an unexpectedly quick death, the (deliberately?) vague and inconclusive nature of Bateï¿½s autopsy report, together with vague or strange passages in some contemporary accounts and inconsistencies between them. He concludes that the evidence points, not to death from malaria or other natural causes (though he concedes malaria may have been present near the end), but to a deliberate, well-planned and ultimately successful plot to murder Cromwell by poisoning him.

He suggests that Cromwell was poisoned by Bate, assisted by Thomas Clarges and the future bishops of London and Worcester. Most reviewers were not convinced by Professor McMains's arguments, noting that they involved stretching and moulding often weak and insecure evidence and that they rested upon a great deal of unproven speculation. It is not inconceivable that Cromwell was poisoned ï¿½ many wanted him dead, there were some rumours at the time, and other historians have sniffed around the poisoning possibility ï¿½ but less dramatic and more plausible alternatives are available. By 1658 Cromwell was aged, weak and in declining health, since 1649 he had endured several bouts of recurrent fever, and many of the accounts of summer 1658 indicate that he was suffering from a return of this malarial-type recurrent fever or even explicitly link this attack with earlier visitations. Accordingly, most historians believe that Cromwell died from natural causes, killed by a particularly severe visitation of the malarial-type recurrent fever to which he had been prone since 1649.

Civil War leader Oliver Cromwell died of malaria and typhoid and not a poisoning plot | Daily Mail Online Share 83 shares Dr Sanjay Saint, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan, believes while the malaria weakened Cromwell and the typhoid fever, caused by a Salmonella infection, finished him off. CROMWELL: THE ENEMY OF FUN Whether he is a hero or one of history's great villains is a question that still splits opinion. But one thing is certain – Oliver Cromwell was hardly known for his sense of humour. And precisely how deep his Puritanical streak ran is shown in a series of proclamations from 350 years ago. The 'anti-fun charter' – conveyed to the population on posters nailed to trees – spells out Cromwell's grim vision for the nation. One of the 'acts and ordinances' posters, dating to 1651, declares: 'No observation shall be had of the Five and twentieth day of December, commonly called Christmas-Day.' And in 1642, parliament ordered theatres to shut – leading to the temporary closure of Shakespeare's Globe.

That decree reads: 'Being spectacles of pleasure, too commonly expressing lascivious Mirth and levitie…Publike Stage-playes shall cease, and bee forborne.' He made his conclusion after examining records made by doctors and embalmers following Cromwell's death. Dr Saint presented his findings to the Historical Clinicopathological Conference, which each year revisits the death of a historical figure, at the University of Maryland. According to Livescience , Dr Saint said: 'I think that Oliver Cromwell had two diseases. I think that he had malaria, and I think that on top of that, he had typhoid fever, which ended up killing him.' Cromwell was known to come from a family who had 'inherited longevity' and was described as having a 'strong physical constitution'. However in August 1658 the man credited with founding the British Empire suffered from a rollercoaster of pains, fevers and illnesses before dying weeks later. His death sparked a crisis and ultimately the collapse of the short-lived Republic. While Cromwell suffered some injuries during battle, drank heavily and is thought to have smoked tobacco, his sudden death was seen as surprising.

Doctors at the time describe how he suffered 'paynes in his bowels and backe' and 'gout' on 1 August but 17 days later he was well enough to go riding for an hour. The next morning, however, he was lightheaded and sweaty and his physician said he had an 'intermitted' pulse. Oliver Cromwell was seen as a decisive figure in British history and his statue stands outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London (pictured). His sudden death sparked rumours that he had been poisoned by Royalists seeking to reestablish the monarchy Dr Sanjay Saint believes Cromwell's symptoms were characteristic of typhoid fever, caused by the bacteria Slamonella typhi (pictured), which comes from contaminated food or water supplies However, by 20 August his pains had disappeared before he began having a series of milder attacks from between 23 and 26 August. By 31 August, his doctors wrote that his death seemed imminent, but the next morning Cromwell appeared to have rallied. During the following night however, he suddenly died.

While the cause of his sudden death was diagnosed as 'terian ague, it sparked rumours of a conspiracy and that he had been poisoned by a Royalist doctor. Although malaria is not endemic in Britain today, it is thought to have been spread there by mosquitoes (pictured) in the past Documents from a crude autopsy conducted at the time reveal that the 'vessels of the brain seemed to be overcharged… lungs a little inflamed… a spleen though sound to the eye, being filled with matter like to the Lees of Oyl'. Dr Saint said this suggests Cromwell's spleen was filled with oily deposits that are characteristic of a septic spleen. He said the symptoms appear to be consistent with typhoid fever, a disease that was common at the time and usually caught by eating or drinking contaminated food or water. An earlier infection with malaria could have been responsible for his other symptoms. Read more: Oliver Cromwell - Frequently asked questions background Frequently asked questions How much do we know about Cromwellï¿½s background? Was he, for example, related to Thomas Cromwell? Did he have any brothers and sisters? We know a fair bit about Oliver Cromwellï¿½s immediate ancestors and close relatives.

He was not directly descended from Thomas Cromwell himself but from Thomasï¿½s sister, Katherine, who had married Oliverï¿½s great-great-grandfather Morgan Williams, after which the family began adopting the Cromwell surname. Oliver was one of ten children. He had two brothers, who both died young, and seven sisters, most of whom survived into adulthood. What happened to Cromwellï¿½s body after his death? Where are his mortal remains now? There has been considerable controversy about the true resting place of Cromwellï¿½s mortal remains, with doubts surfacing at the time and a variety of stories finding their way into print in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, it is likely that Cromwellï¿½s body was buried in a vault in Westminster Abbey in autumn 1658, and that it was located, exhumed and posthumously executed in January 1661.

His headless trunk probably lies in an unmarked grave in the Tyburn area, while his head, which became an undignified collectorï¿½s object, was eventually bequeathed to his former Cambridge College, Sidney Sussex, and was in 1960 immured in the anti-chapel there. What caused the civil war? What part did Cromwell play in causing the war? There is no broadly accepted consensus about what caused the civil war and historians continue to explore a wide variety of causes, short-, medium- and long-term. But no plausible explanation of the war accords Cromwell a significant role in causing the conflict, for down to 1642 Cromwell was a fairly minor figure who had played little part in national politics or affairs of state. abolished Why did Cromwell abolish Christmas? Cromwell did not personally abolish Christmas, though he was one of the much broader Godly or parliamentary party which tried ï¿½ with, it appears, limited success ï¿½ to clamp down on the celebration of Christmas and other saintsï¿½ and holy days during the mid seventeenth century. What role did churches play in the civil war?

Why were so many churches desecrated during the civil war and what part did Cromwell play in this? Many churches were caught up in the English civil war and played a role in the fighting. However, only on a handful of occasions was Cromwell directly involved in military action against opponents who had fortified and were defending churches. In the course of the war, some churches were badly damaged, either as a consequence of the fighting or because soldiers or civilians deliberately sought for ideological and religious reasons to alter the fabric and fittings of churches, removing and destroying physical elements and symbols which they associated with Roman Catholicism or with the high church policies of Charles I and William Laud. Oliver Cromwellï¿½s direct involvement in such iconoclasm was very limited. There is no doubt that someone called Cromwell was responsible for unleashing and encouraging an extensive campaign of iconoclasm which altered the fabric and appearance of thousands of churches in England and Wales, but that was Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to Henry VIII at the time of the Henrician Reformation, not Oliver Cromwell a century or more later. What do we know about Cromwellï¿½s health? What caused his death in September 1658?

Although we know very little about Cromwellï¿½s health during his early life, before the outbreak of war, thereafter his health is fairly well charted. He seems to have been in fairly good health during the 1640s, but during the 1650s a mixture of advancing years and a variety of recurrent afflictions took the toll. Despite some uncertainties and alternative theories, most historians accept that Cromwellï¿½s death in September 1658 was caused by a visitation of a recurrent, malarial-type disease which he may well have picked up while serving in Ireland in 1649-50 and from which he suffered intermittently during his closing years. What do we know about Cromwellï¿½s wealth? Was he a rich man and what was his social standing? Surviving sources give us only an incomplete and at times unclear picture of Cromwellï¿½s wealth and social standing. However, down to the 1640s Cromwell was not particularly rich and he was languishing very much at or near the bottom of the landed, gentry class.

In the course of his successful military career of 1642-51, his financial standing strengthened dramatically and his status and wealth rose appreciably. By the closing years of his life Cromwell had become a very wealthy man and his own personal properties and incomes, over and above those allocated to him as head of state, were vast. What Really Killed Notorious English Leader Olive Cromwell? A portrait of Oliver Cromwell in armor. Credit: Wellcome Trust The last weeks of Oliver Cromwell's life were marked by a roller coaster of illness. From the beginning of August 1658, the man who (briefly) abolished the British monarchy complained of sharp bowel and back pains. He suffered from insomnia, cold and hot fits, sore throat, cough, confusion, diarrhea and vomiting. He would get worse and then seem like he was recovering, but by the end of the month, his fever gave his attendants "the sadde apprehension of danger." He died suddenly in London at age 59. Cromwell's doctors at the time were unable to come up with a precise cause of death. Of course, that hasn't stopped other people from coming up with their own diagnoses in the intervening centuries.

Suspicions have ranged from the mundane — infected kidney stones — to the conspiratorial — poisoning by a closeted Royalist doctor. Now, one doctor has a new theory for what killed one of Britain's most controversial figures: a lethal combination of malaria and typhoid fever caused by a Salmonella infection. [ 8 Grisly Archaeological Discoveries ] While historians have suspected that Cromwell was suffering from a bout of chronic malaria (a mosquito-borne infectious disease) before he died, Dr. Sanjay Saint, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan, does not think it was malaria that ultimately killed him. "What physicians usually try to do is use Occam's razor, saying that one diagnosis explains it all," Saint told Live Science. "In this particular case, I think that Occam's razor is dull, and I'm invoking Hickam's dictum, which states that a patient can have as many diseases as he darn well pleases. I think that Oliver Cromwell had two diseases. I think that he had malaria, and I think that on top of that, he had typhoid fever, which ended up killing him." Cromwell's legacy is still disputed today.

Some see him as the father of British democracy who toppled the monarchy, while others think of him as a war criminal (especially in Ireland) for his anti-Catholic policies and military campaigns. After leading the Parliamentarians to victory over the Royalists in an English civil war and executing King Charles I, Cromwell ascended to power in 1653 as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, serving until he died five years later. To reassess Cromwell's death, Saint looked at the records left by his doctors and associates. During the embalming of Cromwell, examiners found that his brain had overheated, his lungs were engorged, and his spleen, while of normal size, was filled with matter that looked like the "Lees of Oyl," or the big deposits of oil that might settle at the bottom of a jar, something that is characteristic of a septic spleen, Saint said. Saint thinks these symptoms are consistent with typhoid fever, which was common in the 17th century and is acquired from fecal-oral transmission, usually when a person eats food or drinks water contaminated with the Salmonella typhi strain of bacteria.

This bacterial infection can lead to the thinning of the intestinal wall, which can give way to a rupture, releasing various microbes into the bloodstream, overwhelming the body and causing sudden death. Saint was asked to review Cromwell's case for the Historical Clinicopathological Conference, which is being held today (Oct. 23) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Each year at this meeting, doctors revisit the death of a historical figure . For example, in 2007, diagnosticians at the conference determined that Abraham Lincoln may have survived his gunshot wound if he had been wheeled into a modern emergency room. "One of the most exciting parts about being a physician is that you get to be a detective — that's why many of us go into internal medicine," Saint said. "It makes it more challenging to understand why someone died when you cannot examine them or ask questions or perform any tests on them." Doyle Clan - Cromwell Devastates Ireland Cromwell Devastates Ireland Oliver Cromwell's Irish campaign is remembered for its brilliance ... but especially for its bloody-handed ruthlessness. T he Irish rebellion Oliver Cromwell suppressed in 1649 was the later stage of an uprising that had been going on since 1641.

On October 23, 1641, 40 years after the great rebellion of Hugh O'Neill, earl of Tyrone, the Irish rose in revolt, first in Ulster, then later in the rest of Ireland. About 3,000 English and Scottish settlers were killed in the initial uprising. The numbers were inflated by Parliament to hundreds of thousands as a propaganda ploy to prevent King Charles I from making peace and using the Irish against Parliament during the Civil War. The English forces initially were commanded by James Butler, Duke of Ormonde and lord lieutenant of Ireland. In 1645, however, with Parliament in control of England, the Duke of Ormonde took control of the rebellion and led the Confederacy, an alliance of all Royalists in Ireland. Others, such as Murrough O'Brien, Baron of Inchiquin, an Irish Protestant stationed in Munster opposed the Confederacy and laid waste to Munster, earning him the name Murrough of the Burnings and the hatred of his Irish countrymen.

Owen Roe O'Neill, nephew of Tyrone and a "Wild Geese" veteran of the Spanish army, kept his Ulster forces separate from the Duke of Ormonde's, representing a purely Irish Catholic element. The years 1647 to 1649 were pivotal for the rebellion. First, in 1647 the baron of Inchiquin switched sides for no apparent reason and joined the Duke of Ormonde. Second, Colonel Michael Jones landed with 2,000 troops, expelled the Duke of Ormonde from Dublin and defeated him at Rathmines in August 1649. That broke the Duke of Ormonde's power. All that was left to do was capture the strongholds still in Confederate or Irish hands. Oliver Cromwell set out for Ireland to do just that. Cromwell faced a bitterly divided Ireland. Native Irish (Catholic), the "Old English" (the descendants of the original Catholic English colonists), New English (Protestant) and Scottish (Protestant), the more recent settlers, all distrusted one another almost as much as they did Cromwell, sometimes more so.

Cromwell's greatest obstacles were not Irish or Confederate troops but the nature of Ireland itself, where conditions were terrible and the climate is even wetter than in England. Plague and influenza proved more devastating to Cromwell's men than Irish arms. Cromwell set sail for Ireland on August 13, 1649. He arrived in Dublin on the 15th and was greeted by the roar of cannons from the walls and a great, enthusiastic crowd. Cromwell was received so favorably because Dublin was the second city of the English empire and Colonel Jones had expelled all Catholics from the city. The Duke of Ormonde left Sir Arthur Aston, an English Catholic, at Drogheda with 2,200 infantry and 20 cavalry to delay Cromwell from marauding farther north.

Aston was well aware of Cromwell's superior numbers--8,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry--but he was confident that Drogheda's superior position would enable him to survive the Cromwellian onslaught even if he could not hope to take the Lord Lieutenant in the field--or, as he put it, "He who could take Drogheda could take Hell." He also expected war's partners, disease and famine, to weaken the (Protestant) Parliamentary army. The geography of Drogheda was crucial to the siege. The town was totally contained within a formidable wall one and a half miles long, 20 feet high, and 6 feet wide at the base, narrowing to 2 feet on top. The main town lay north of the River Boyne. To the south, still within the impressive fortifications, was an additional urban area situated on a hill that had to be tackled first by any army coming from the south. In the extreme southeast corner, virtually embedded in the city wall, stood St. Mary's Church. From its lofty steeple the defenders not only had a fine view of the city but were in a good position to fire upon their Protestant attackers.

Flanking the church on the town side was a steep ravine called the Dale, then the heavily guarded Duleek Gate, the entrance to this southern outpost, and behind that an imposing artificial mound called the Mill Mount. On September 10, Cromwell issued his first official summons to Sir Arthur Aston: "Having brought the army belonging to the Parliament of England before this place, to reduce it to obedience, to the end the effusion of blood may be prevented, I thought it fit to summon you to deliver the same into my hands to their use. If this be refused you will have no cause to blame me." Cromwell's Forces commence their bombardment of Drogheda Aston refused to surrender, and Cromwell's cannons opened fire. The walls of the city began to crumble. Aston quickly realized that he was in danger. The (Protestant) Parliamentary fleet blockaded the harbor. The Duke of Ormonde could send no more reinforcements, his arms and provisions were running short. Worst of all, like all of Ireland, Drogheda was not united. Some of those inside the walls preferred the English Parliamentary force.

Knowing that there could be "no quarter" (no mercy) if he refused to surrender, Aston decided to fight on, writing to the Duke of Ormonde that his soldiers, at least, "were unanimous in their resolution to perish rather than to deliver up the place." The (Catholic) defenders fought bravely, at first turning back the attackers, but eventually the Parliamentarians crashed through the walls and seized St. Mary's Church. Aston and some defenders fled to Mill Mount. Possessed by bloodlust, the Parliamentarians rushed up the hill, and all defenders, including Aston, were killed by order of Cromwell. The Parliamentarians swept through the streets with orders to kill anyone in arms. Against orders, civilians also were killed in the rush. Priests and friars were treated as combatants by Cromwell's Puritans and executed. Even more horrible was the fate of the defenders of St. Peter's Church in the northern part of the town; the church was burned down around them. By nightfall, only small pockets of resistance on the walls remained.

When they managed to kill some (Protestant) Parliamentarians, Cromwell ordered the captured (Catholic) officers to be "knocked on the head" and every 10th soldier (Catholic) executed. Nearly 4,000 (Catholic) Confederates died at Drogheda. Drogheda's being divided by the river caused some confusion and may have led to the massacre. When forces on one side of the river surrendered, it is alleged that Cromwell, still meeting resistance on the other side, ordered the annihilation of the entire population. "I do not think that thirty of the whole number escaped with their lives," Cromwell later wrote. The survivors were sold as slaves to the sugar plantations at Barbados. Cromwell Leading the Storming Party at Drogheda by W.R.S.

Stott After the massacre, Cromwell sought to explain his actions in a letter to William Lenthall, speaker of the English Parliament: "...I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgement of God upon these barbarous wretches, who have imbued their hands in so much innocent blood, and it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future, which are satisfactory grounds to such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remourse and regret...." Arthur Wellesley (an Irisman), the famous Duke of Wellington, later said in Cromwell's defense: "The practice of refusing quarter to a garrison which stands an assault is not a useless effusion of blood." The Duke of Ormonde tried to make excuses for not aiding Drogheda. He said that many of his officers and troops were on the verge of mutiny or were showing a lack of courage, so it was not wise to get close to the enemy. Ormonde later wrote to King Charles II: "It is not to be imagined the terror these successes and the power of the rebels have struck into the people.

They are so stupefied, that it is with great difficulty I can persuade them to act anything like men toward their own." When Owen Roe O'Neill heard of the massacre, he swore an oath that he would retake the town even if he had to storm Hell. Cromwell set out for the south a fortnight after Drogheda. Winter was fast approaching and no time could be lost if the southern part of the island was to be subdued. He had to follow up before the scattered Irish forces recovered from the initial panic and joined in a stronger union. Cromwell and his army encamped at the walls of Wexford on October 1, 1649. It was most important to capture that town, for it was through Wexford that the (Catholic) Confederates received their arms and kept in touch with supporters in foreign countries. He hoped the capture would be easy. Ormonde also realized the importance of the place and sent 1,000 infantry and 300 cavalry to reinforce the garrison. The townspeople, however, did not trust the Duke of Ormonde.

They remembered that he had surrendered Dublin a few years earlier; they knew he had recently made common cause with the (Protestant) Baron of Inchiquin; they remembered how he had massacred his own people earlier in the revolt. Their distrust was so strong that they initially refused entry to Ormonde's forces and did so only after the Parliamentary fleet arrived. Cromwell himself admitted that Wexford was "pleasantly seated and strong." It had a rampart of earth 15 feet thick within the walls to improve its chances of withstanding a siege. It was garrisoned by more than 2,000 men. In the fort and elsewhere were nearly 100 cannons. In the harbor were three ships, one with 34 guns and two with 20. Since it was the middle of October, winter would soon be setting in, and sickness would soon take its toll on troops camped in the open. The Duke of Ormonde was camped 20 miles away at Ross, waiting for a favorable moment to strike. The (Catholic) Confederates faced a disadvantage that negated the town's impressive fortifications, however: there was a traitor in their midst, Captain James Stafford.

Had Stafford's treason not occurred, Wexford would no doubt have been a tougher nut to crack. On October 11, Stafford gave Cromwell entrance to the town. The scenes that followed mirrored those at Drogheda. Many Franciscans and other priests were killed. Three hundred women were massacred while standing at the cross in the public square. They had hoped that being near the cross would soften the hearts of the Christian soldiers. Instead it identified them as Catholics, and they were put to death. The churches were then destroyed. The total number of dead at Wexford was about 2,000. After Wexford, the English Parliament sent Cromwell reinforcements and an enormous sum of money to buy off his (Catholic) English enemies in Ireland. Cromwell then marched on Ross. Two days after the summons, the town surrendered without a fight, although the Duke of Ormonde had sent 2,500 extra men into the town. The townspeople no doubt were frightened by the events at Drogheda and Wexford.

Unable to prevent them from crossing the Barrow River, Cromwell granted terms: the inhabitants were protected from looting and violence, and the garrison was allowed to march away under arms. He turned down a request for freedom of worship, however. About 500 men from the Ross garrison, mostly the (Protestant) Baron of Inchiquin's men, defected to Cromwell. The reinforcements were welcome, because the expedition was beginning to take its toll on him and his men. At Ross, Cromwell himself suffered from a mild form of malaria. The defection of the troops was a blow to the Duke of Ormonde. The ranks of the (Catholic) Confederacy were discouraged and disaffected. Ormonde wrote to King Charles II that only his presence could hearten his discouraged subjects. In early November, the Irish cause suffered an even worse blow. The Earl O'Neill died of a mysterious illness. Some say the only Irish commander who could have taken on Cromwell head to head had been poisoned. Before he died, O'Neill signed a treaty with the Duke of Ormonde and sent some of his troops south, but after this severe setback Ormonde had to rely on withdrawal and evasion tactics.

After Ross, Cromwell built a bridge across the Barrow, advanced into Tipperary and captured the Duke of Ormonde's castle. He then joined his son-in-law, General Henry Ireton, at Duncannon. After some deliberation, most of the army was withdrawn from Ross and placed at a less fortified post to form a blockade around Duncannon to prevent supplies coming in from Waterford. That proved unnecessary, because Waterford refused to part with any of its own scanty provisions. The commander of the fort, Thomas Roche, informed the Duke of Ormonde that there was no way he could hold the fort against Cromwell and that he would have to obey the summons. Ormonde promptly sent Colonel Edward Wogan, a defector from Ireton's ranks, along with 120 cavalry, to replace Roche. They arrived just in time to save the fort. They sent a defiant answer to Cromwell, and he abandoned the siege rather than pursue it in the winter. Although Duncannon had a reprieve, the (Catholic) Confederates lost a more important place; the garrison at Cork revolted in favor of the Parliamentarians about the same time Cromwell was at Ross.

The seeds of the revolt were sown before Cromwell's coming as Protestants sought to break the dominance of Catholics, especially the Confederates. Cromwell sent agents to widen the differences. One of them was Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill, a former royalist who joined Cromwell out of financial need. (A low man who betrayed is King.) Another Cromwell agent was Colonel Richard Townsend, who pretended to be angered at the execution of the king but who was trying to corrupt the Munster forces. Their activities quickly bore fruit. The Munster Protestants had nothing to hope for and everything to fear from the (Catholic) Confederates. Cromwell remarked that "if there had been a man like Boyle in every province, it would have been impossible for the Irish to raise a rebellion." The result was that Broghill raised 1,500 infantry and a troop of cavalry from his family estates. Townsend led the (Protestant) English troops and citizens of Cork in driving out the (Catholic) Irish and declared the city for the English Parliament. The rising saved Townsend from being executed for hatching a plot to capture the baron of Inchiquin.

The revolt was a greater disaster for the Duke of Ormonde than the mere loss of Cork. The Irish complained that Ormonde showed favoritism to the English, and he was thus compelled to restore Roche at Duncannon. The rest of Inchiquin's English troops deserted, making the campaign a tribal war between Celts and English. Inchiquin was even accused of being a traitor. The accusation was false, but the damage was done, and he lost much of his already scant credibility. With the capture of Drogheda and Wexford, the major strongholds on the east coast, and the possession of Cork, the first stage of Cromwell's Irish campaign was over. His task was clear: reduce the garrisons that still held out in Munster and bring that province under the rule of the English Parliament. The rising in Cork made that task simpler by widening the gap between the Irish (Catholics) and the Old English (also Catholics). Cromwell spent as much time on diplomatic maneuvering as he did on field operations.

As matters stood in mid-November 1649, the forces of the English Parliament held the east coast from Belfast down to Wexford, plus Cork in the west. Only a few towns in the north remained in Irish hands. Cromwell was still ill, so he sent Jones and Ireton to the county of Kilkenny to secure the garrisons there, cut the Duke of Ormonde off from Waterford and draw him into an open engagement. The plan was not successful. The (Catholic) Confederates first retired to Thomastown, then to the fortified city of Kilkenny. Ireton sent Colonel Daniel Abbott to take the town, but Abbott found that the River Nore was flooded and the bridge at Thomastown was destroyed. Ireton and Jones had to be content with sending Colonel John Reynolds to take Carriek and returning to Ross with the main army. Weather had joined disease and famine in the fight against Cromwell.

Carrick soon fell, and Cromwell, now recovered from his illness, led his army across the River Suir to Waterford The Duke of Ormonde lay with 10,000 men on the Kilkenny side of the River Suir opposite Waterford and the (Protestant) Parliamentarians. He sent the Baron of Inchiquin to try to recapture Carrick, but he failed. Cromwell had 7,000 at the beginning of the siege, but wet weather and plague reduced the number to 3,000. At that point, Ormonde could have stopped him. Again, Ormonde's army did not come into play, because of the same disunity that plagued the Irish at Drogheda and Wexford. His army was seen by most Irish as an alien force, just as offensive as Cromwell's. Cromwell sought to exploit this feeling in his summons to Waterford on November 21, 1649. His warning was similar to those given to Drogheda and Wexford, but the result was different. Hunger and disease had taken such a toll on Cromwell's force that eventually he was compelled to retreat.

Cromwell came out of winter quarters at the end of January 1650 and began the conquest of southern Ireland. He offered terms of surrender at the city of Fethard on February 2. Officers, soldiers and priests would be allowed to march away, and the townspeople would be protected from looting. The town of Cashel surrendered without a fight, and Cromwell turned his army on Callan, a city defended by a strong wall and three castles. He attacked with cannons, took two of the castles, put their defenders to the sword and accepted the surrender of the third. Next Cromwell turned to Cahir, commanded by the Duke of Ormonde's half-brother, Captain George Mathews. When Mathews refused the first demand to surrender, the Parliamentarians tried to scale the walls. A force of Catholic Ulstermen repulsed the attack, but Cromwell brought up his cannons. Mathews realized he could not hold out and surrendered under terms Cromwell agreed to--that the officers, soldiers and clergymen be allowed to march out. Cromwell pushed on, taking the towns of Kiltenan, Dundrum, Ballynakill and Kildare.

He and other Parliamentarians next converged on Kilkenny, headquarters of the Confederacy. He summoned Kilkenny on March 22, 1650: "My coming hither is to endeavour, if God so please to bless me, the reduction of the city of Kilkenny to their obedience to the state of England, from which, by an unheard of massacre of the innocent English, you have endeavored to rend yourselves." Sir Walter Butler, governor of Kilkenny and a cousin of the Duke of Ormonde, responded that he would maintain the town for the King. The city was not in good shape, however. Hundreds of the garrison died of plague, and reinforcements had deserted. Nearby Cantwell Castle surrendered to Cromwell. Ormonde and the Supreme Council had long since fled. Nevertheless, Cromwell found it not so easy to take the town. The city was divided by the River Nore into two parts, Kilkenny proper and Irishtown. A plot to betray the city was discovered, and a Captain Tickell was executed. Butler refused to surrender, and an attack beginning on the 24th at Irishtown was first repulsed, but ultimately succeeded.

Butler again refused to surrender, and the Parliamentary attack continued on the 25th. Hours of bombardment caused a breach in the wall of the town proper. Two attacks by the (Protestant) Parliamentarians were repulsed, and a third order to attack was not obeyed, but Butler soon decided that he'd done all he could do and surrendered. Upon payment of 2,000 pounds sterling, the citizens of Kilkenny were protected from looting, and the officers and soldiers were allowed to march out disarmed for two miles. The clergymen also were allowed to march out. For some weeks after Kilkenny, Cromwell did not take an active role in operations; instead he directed them, first from Carrick, then from Fethard. He realized that Ormonde was at the end of his resources. On the east coast, only Waterford was not in English hands, and on the west coast the plague-devastated city of Galway. Limerick refused to admit any forces not dominated by the Catholic clergy. Furthermore, the Catholic bishop of Derry was making arrangements with foreign princes to transport several thousand fighting men out of Ireland.

On the combat side, the baron of Inchiquin tried to invade Limerick, but was routed by Broghill. Broghill then joined Cromwell at Clonmel after beating back an invasion of County Cork by David Roche. By the end of March 1650, there was little to do except to take Clonmel, Waterford and Limerick and reduce the scattered Irish remnants, since the last major Confederate commander besides Ormonde, Inchiquin, was negotiating with Cromwell. Cromwell's next objective, Clonmel, was commanded by General Hugh Duffy O'Neill, "Black Hugh," who, like his uncle, Owen Roe O'Neill, had previously served with the "Wild Geese" in the Spanish army. At his command were 12,000 troops, mostly (Catholic) Ulstermen and all but 50 of whom were infantry. Ormonde promised to send aid but did not. It was in Black Hugh that Cromwell met his greatest adversary in Ireland. Cromwell arrived at Clonmel on April 27, a month after Kilkenny. There is no evidence that he summoned the city to surrender.

Supplies were running low when he arrived and, as in other places, there was treason to aid Cromwell's effort. A Major Fennell accepted 500 pounds sterling from Cromwell and opened the gates to 500 Parliamentarians. But Black Hugh had some of his uncle's savvy. He discovered the plot and arrested Fennell, who confessed on promise of a pardon. The 500 English Parliamentarians were slaughtered by the Ulstermen. This was not the beginning Cromwell desired. On April 30, he brought up the guns and began the bombardment. On May 9, the English Parliamentarians poured through a breach--and right into a trap. O'Neill had made breastworks, with a masked battery, 80 yards from the breach. The Irish fired chain shot from their cannons, and the troops maintained a continuous fire from the breastworks. Stone and timber also were hurled at the attackers. More Parliamentarians came in, only to be killed. Finally, the Parliamentarians withdrew with a loss of 2,500 men. Cromwell lost more at Clonmel than he had in all the other battles in Ireland put together.

Some speculate that Cromwell would have lost even more men if the promised reinforcements had arrived. In the end, the Parliamentarians took Clonmel not by force of arms but the lack of supplies and the ineptitude of the Duke of Ormonde. The fact that Hugh O'Neill and his men managed to sneak out of town during the night before Clonmel fell also doesn't say much for Cromwell's vigilance. Less than a month later Cromwell returned to England, which was facing a threat of invasion from Scotland, which had declared for the exiled King Charles II (a Celt ... a Stuart). He left Ireton in command. The war in Ireland continued on the Duke of Ormonde's forlorn hope that Charles II would come in from Scotland, but, for the most part, the Irish effort had degenerated into bands of guerrillas known as Tories. Two months after Clonmel, Bishop Hebere Mac Mahon led an Ulsterman army of Catholics against Sir Charles Coote, against the advice of Henry O'Neill ... Owen Roe's son. The bishop was captured, hanged, drawn and quartered on the order of Coote and Ireton.

The bishop had appealed to Owen Roe O'Neill to spare Coote at the siege of Derry several years earlier. Ireton captured Waterford on June 21 and tried but failed to take Limerick. Coote narrowly defeated the remnants of Owen Roe O'Neill's army at Scariffhollis. At the end of 1650, Ormonde left Ireland and was replaced by the Earl of Clanridarde, who was just as despised as Ormonde and could not unite the factions. Ireton again tried to take Limerick in June 1651, and after a siege of five months, the city, under the command of Black Hugh O'Neill, yielded. Ireton died of the plague in November, but Edmund Ludlow and Charles Fleetwood completed the subjugation. Both of them later became Lord Lieutenants of Ireland. Galway, the last city to resist, surrendered in May 1652. The war that had begun in 1641 was over, and more than 616,000 people died in the 12 years of the war. Many today trace the current problems in Northern Ireland back to Cromwell.

The British troops in Northern Ireland are referred to as "Cromwell's Boys," and there is hardly a ruined building in Ireland whose destruction is not blamed on Cromwell.

Question: From which disease did Oliver Cromwell die?
Answer: MALARIA